Test Shaft 09

The foyer was poured in 1952 and the shaft has been going down ever since. It accepted its first volunteers on the eleventh of March, four months ahead of the schedule the engineers gave me, which I achieved by the simple expedient of not asking the engineers for a schedule.

Dictated by Cave Johnson, President & Founder, at the head of the shaft

09Shaft numberThe newest of nine

11Minutes to the bottomNothing to see

14Enrichment SpheresNumbered from the base

62Chambers in serviceOf sixty-four cut

4,000 ft.To the lowest floorSee note

A test shaft is not a hole. A hole is what you have before you have spent eleven million dollars. A test shaft is a vertical street with rooms off it, and Shaft 09 is the best one we have built, and I want to walk you down it in the order a volunteer walks down it, because that is the only order in which any of it makes sense.

You arrive at the gate house at eight. Mr. Pike has held that job since 1951 and has never once been wrong about who is in this building, which is a sentence I would like other departments to read twice. He takes your form, he gives you a numbered coat, and he points you at the tower.

The tower is the only part of Shaft 09 that is above ground, and it is deliberately unimpressive. Brick, four storeys, a painted sign, and a door. The competition builds a lobby. We built a door, and put the eleven million dollars underneath it.

Fig. 3. Section through Shaft 09, drawn to no scale whatever. The Enrichment Spheres hang on the central column; the galleries and observation rooms are cut into the salt on either side. The lowest four levels are not shown, at the request of Facilities.

Foyer poured: 1952
Opened to volunteers: 11 March 1959
Enrichment Spheres: Fourteen, numbered from the base upward
Chambers cut: Sixty-four
Chambers in service: Sixty-two
Observation rooms: Twenty-two, all glazed, all one-way
Elevator: One. Eleven minutes. Do not press the button twice.
Stair: One. Nobody has ever walked it all the way.
Lowest floor: Disputed. See the note.

Facilities gives the depth in feet and Engineering gives it in metres and the two figures do not describe the same hole. The President has ruled that the shaft is whatever depth the man standing at the bottom of it says it is, and the matter is closed.

The Descent

Eleven minutes. There is one lamp in the car and there is nothing to look at through the gate except salt going up past you, which after the first minute is exactly as interesting as it sounds. Volunteers are encouraged to talk to one another. Most do not.

At the fourth minute the car passes the reactor gallery, and there is a warmth to it, and a noise, and a man called Greg who cleans that gallery and who will raise a hand to you as you go past if he happens to be facing the shaft. Greg has been down there longer than anyone can document and the Personnel Department has stopped trying.

At the ninth minute the car passes Sub-Level 4 and the noise changes. That is eleven tons of relays doing arithmetic, badly, in the dark. At the eleventh minute the car stops, and the doors open on a corridor that is warm, dry, and painted the same institutional grey as everything else this company has ever sold.

“You’re here because we want the best, and you are it.”

— Cave Johnson, addressing the first descent, 11 March 1959

The Chambers

Sixty-four were cut. Sixty-two are in service. The schedule below is the one posted at the head of the shaft, reproduced exactly, including the two entries Operations would rather were not reproduced exactly.

Chamber schedule, Test Shaft 09, as posted

Chamber schedule, Test Shaft 09, as posted
Chamber	Sphere	Principal Apparatus	Status
1–4	01	Button, pedestal. Cube, weighted.	In service
5–7	02	Aperture pair, fixed emplacement	In service
8	02	Aperture pair, fixed emplacement	Sealed 12 March. Reopened 12 March.
9–18	03	Repulsion gel, ledge, button	In service
19–27	04–05	Propulsion gel, run, arrest	In service
28–36	06–07	Faith plate, trajectory	In service
37–48	08–10	Emancipation grill, cube, aperture	In service
49–60	11–13	Combined. Observation on two sides.	In service
61–62	14	Combined, extended duration	In service
63–64	—	Cut. Not fitted.	Not in service

Chambers are numbered continuously across spheres rather than restarting at each, so that a volunteer’s record reads as one afternoon rather than fourteen.

SHAFT LOG, 11 MARCH 1959, REPRODUCED FROM THE DAY BOOK:
0640 — Shaft open. First volunteers descend.
0902 — Chambers 1 through 7 nominal.
1130 — Chamber 8. Subject did not emerge.
1131 — Chamber 8. Subject emerged. Different door.
1132 — Chamber 8. Subject emerged again. Same door.
1134 — See attached.
There is no attached.

Test Shaft 09Eleven Minutes — Do Not Press TwiceChamber 8 — Do Not Enter

The three placards above are the three placards at the head of the shaft. The third was hung on the thirteenth of March and Operations has been asked, twice, who authorised it, and has answered, twice, that the placard was already there.

Verifying personnel file…

The eleven minutes is not the depth. I have timed the car going down and timed it coming up and it is eleven minutes down and nine minutes back. Nobody in Facilities will tell me why. — C.

Form ASI-301. Volunteers report to the gate house at the head of Shaft 09 at eight o’clock. Bring the coupon from Form ASI-302 and nothing metal; the reason is on Form ASI-209 and it concerns fillings.

the car takes eleven minutes down and nine coming up. work out where the other two minutes are